


keep your heart close to the ground

by scorpionbythesea



Series: Pretty spry for older guys [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Gen, Mentions of Blood, Violence, bucky's trying to figure out who the hell he is, memory triggers, post winter soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:56:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1518164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpionbythesea/pseuds/scorpionbythesea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has another mission now, and two names he did not have before. One of them must be his own, he thinks, though he has no recollection of ever having a name.</p><p> </p><p>A fic following the Winter Soldier after he steps out of the Potomac and makes his first choice of not going back, and the choices he makes following that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: possible triggers for references to the brainwashing, violence, and what i suppose is ptsd/ extreme bodily reactions to flashbacks.
> 
> This isn't really a fun read, tbh. It's Bucky after the helicarrier incident, and leads up to the second post-credit scene. Essentially him dealing with memory triggers and such.

He's been on the move for some time now, though he’s not sure how much time has passed since he stopped his fist from crashing down again, and again and again into the face of the man lying before him. He knows it felt like something in him short-circuited, as if paralyzed but he can’t think about what happened too much before the nausea kicks in.

The first time he’d stopped to think about what he’d done: _disobeyed orders, failed the mission, failed the mission, target still alive sir, mission report negative, mission failed, mission failed, mission fai--_ he’d tensed up, expecting something to happen- something bad.

He doesn’t know where that feeling came from, can’t remember pain or punishment, only his mission briefing under the glare of the artificial lights, but something in him must have remembered what came before. And so the tense feeling in his gut had started, muscles stiffening, hands bunching into fists at his side. His breath had become shallow of its own accord: bursts of air that left him breathless and dizzy, a pain building in his temples. He remembered, suddenly, the sight of a black chair standing in the middle of a room, the feeling of shackles around his wrist, the press of a guard against his teeth. His body reacts to the memory before his mind can catch up, and he’s doubled up and retching within seconds, body trying to rid itself of the internalized pain. There’s water, first, and bile that burns his throat and he’s almost glad he has something to focus on: this hurt, the immediate and tangible and _real_ pain he’s feeling, doesn’t allow him to think about anything else. So he zeroes in on his body, feels the tremors racking his frame, the burning in his throat, the ache behind his eyes. He sees, dimly, through the sheen of tears, the fingers of his left hand clench so tight he hears the metal screech. He remembers those same fingers around the throat of his target, the blonde man who’d been familiar, remembers them locking into place with the whir of metal, pressing in and in and in, cutting the air off bit by bit, choking the man, choking— _Steve._

When he comes to, he’s lying on his side on the ground and tastes blood in the back of his throat, feels it cracked on his lips. He sits up, slowly, takes a deep breath before rotating first one, then the other shoulder, flexes his hands, shifts to his feet in one fluid motion. When he lifts a hand to brush hair out of his face, two fingers come up stained red and his gaze drops to the floor. There, on the concrete ground of the warehouse, are three letters crudely painted in his blood, in his writing: J B B.

_You know me._

_Bucky. You’ve known me your whole life._

His fingers curl back into fists.

_Your name is James Buchanan Barnes._

_I’m not gonna fight you. You’re my friend._

He remembers swinging his arm back, bringing his fist down, the judder of impact rippling up. The blood collecting in the creases of the finger plates, his flesh and blood hand gripped tight into the target’s— _Steve’s—_ front. He remembers the way the blood had begun seeping through the front of the uniform, spreading from the bullet wound, staining his fingers as he held Steve down. _You’re my friend,_ the blonde man had said, and he thinks of the body he had pulled out of the Potomac, and a name sits at the tip of his tongue, heavy and coppery. _Rogers,_ he realizes eventually, _Steve Rogers._ He doesn’t know the reason, but the name brings up an image of a thin, frail looking young man, body racking with coughs as he lies on a small bed. That is not the man he had stood opposite, but he feels it, down to his core, that what he had said on the causeway was true: _you’ve known me your whole life_. Getting up to his feet, he sways slightly, spitting blood onto the ground. He knows by rights he should never have been so careless; should be wiping the ground of traces of himself, making sure to leave no mark. It doesn’t matter to him though, as he squares his shoulders, holsters his remaining guns, straps the last knife in: he has no intention of returning here. He has another mission now, and two names he did not have before. One of them must be his own, he thinks, though he has no recollection of ever having a name. James Buchanan Barnes doesn’t sit right with him yet, and when he tries to say it out loud, his voice cracks. It’s a nice enough name, though, so he thinks he may as well take it. People have names and stories to tell, after all.

It’s time for him to find out James Barnes’ story.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He realizes that he is not as easy to put back together as a gun. He is almost grateful for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible trigger warnings for: guns, nightmares, (more) vomiting, blood, mentions of violence.   
> Still not such a fun read, really.

He has no money, no spare clothes, nothing to cover the fingers that shine too bright even in near-darkness. He has a name, two guns and a knife, and a head that feels like it’s filled with cotton wool for all the good it’s doing him.

He has hair that hangs, lank, in his face and eyes that stare, blank and unseeing for hours on end as he tries to jog his memory of who he is. Who he _was._ Because he must have been some _one_ before he was some _thing_ , surely? He starts attempting to chip at the obstinate fuzzy grey void in his mind by doing things he knows he can do: takes his guns apart slowly and methodically, cleaning the muzzle, the sights, the barrel, the magazines; removes and counts the bullets he has left; sights the gun against the far wall. He reassembles it, hoping the actions will trigger a new memory, bring a new flash of recognition, but by the tenth time, he realizes that he is not as easy to put back together as a gun. He is almost grateful for it.

He doesn’t sleep much, for when he does close his eyes, he inevitably wakes up thrashing wildly, mouth open in a silent howl. People crop up in his dreams, faces hazy and indistinct, but he doesn’t need to see their expressions to know they are dead; know how they died. The first time he falls asleep and wakes from the nightmares, he’s clutching a knife in his left hand, right hand palm bleeding from where he’d dug his nails in. He knows how the corpses in his dreams came to be, he realizes dully, because he killed them. There is nothing left for him to throw up, so he retches on nothing, tastes blood in his throat. His body is fighting itself, and he cannot do anything to control his mind while he sleeps, so he avoids it. Instead of sleeping, he repeats a name in his head: James Buchanan Barnes.

One night, as he lets himself into a thrift shop and rifles through the clothes racks, an advert on the wall catches his eye. 

Two days later, wearing a large jacket, gloves and a cap that obscures his face, he lets himself be carried along by the crowd, into the exhibit that may give him answers. He focuses on his breathing, on the pressure of the knife tucked against his shin, the looped garrote wire around his wrist, the quickest exits. The presence of people everywhere around him puts him on edge, and he swallows thickly when he watches a young girl with her parents stroll around, laughing. All he can see is the six different ways he could kill the child without exerting any force. He is up to method 27- _direct blow to the kidneys with the knife edge of the hand-_ when he feels the wire digging into his wrist, snapping him back to reality. The family has moved on, and his eyes are drawn to a large glass panel in the middle of the room. There is a text engraved on it, but it is the photo of the man that has his attention. He steps closer, carefully, examines the face of the man that is supposed to be him. He’s not too sure he wants to look, but can’t look away either, so he steels himself, reads the information on James Barnes’ life and death without flinching, files it away.

He has plenty of space for new information, after all. It may be useful.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is angry with himself, and the sterile wash over his brain: the gut deep feeling that something is missing, something he isn’t able to place but niggles at his thoughts anyway. He crashes his flesh and blood hand into the floor, a ragged moan of frustration ripping its way out of his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: mentions of killing/ attacking someone, blood, brainwashing, more blood, corpses, general frustration/ anger/ horrible messed up feelings, mentions of violence.

He hadn’t lasted long after entering the exhibit; watching grainy black and white footage of two men that looked so content in each other’s company that it made his eyes sting, reading about the man that James Barnes was, hailed as a hero, making the ultimate sacrifice for his friend, country, _captain._ His hands begin shaking after a while, the voice over the speakers talking of bravery on the battlefield, of storming secret bases and setting back the enemy, of turning the tide of the war. It is sanitized and clinical, big words ringing hollow, the whole thing scrubbed up so that children don’t get nightmares.

He thinks he knows about wars, though he cannot remember taking part in anything the exhibit talks about. He knows about clean shots, of the proper angle to slide a knife between someone’s ribs, of killing a person with a single kick; knows he will never be able to lose that knowledge, no matter if he wishes to. He knows about locating a target in a crowd, of avoiding being seen, of being the last thing to be seen as another life ends. The room seems to shrink, walls closing in as he looks around, zeroes in on children and old people: easy targets. He turns towards the nearest exit, tries to cross the room as fast as possible, his brain telling him to go, go, go. He brushes against someone in his haste, and the man turns to him, gently chides a “watch where you’re going, pal!” and a thought bubbles up in him as he bristles at the familiar title that should not be coming from this stranger: of reaching out and ripping the man’s throat out, of turning toward the next nearest person and snapping their neck—The man has moved on already, very much alive, and as he lets his hand drop to his side, he realizes with horror how close he was to going through with it.  

He’s unsure how he gets out of the full museum, much less without drawing attention to himself or hurting anyone, but he finds himself back in the abandoned loft he’s scouted out. He hears a quiet keening noise, wonders if there’s an animal in pain somewhere, before he realizes he’s the one making the noises, sobs muffled by his fist. He bites down so hard he tastes blood, feels the old floorboards give way as he crashes his other fist down. He’ll be picking splinters out of the ridges of his fingers, no doubt, but he smashes his metal fist down again regardless, feels the hysteria in him ebb away with every floorboard that cracks. He doesn’t imagine pummeling his fist into faces or particular people, simply because he can’t bring up the face of a person he wishes to harm, mind drawing a cruel blank. Yet as the panicked feeling abates, it is replaced with something hot and heavy that sets his jaw and thrums through his veins: anger, he thinks. He can’t direct the anger at anyone in particular, and perhaps that is the worst, to feel his blood boil and body shake with it, and having to let the feeling run its course.

He is angry with himself, and the sterile wash over his brain: the gut deep feeling that something is missing, something he isn’t able to place but niggles at his thoughts anyway. He crashes his flesh and blood hand into the floor, a ragged moan of frustration ripping its way out of his throat. The sound startles him, and suddenly he’s back in a large bank vault, strapped to a black chair with monitors beeping around him, soldiers in stealth gear with enough weapons to furnish a small army standing around him, ready to riddle his body with ammo at even the slightest bit of disobedience from him, even as he’s screaming in anguish. 

 

Night falls, and he slips out of the building through the window, swinging himself up onto the roof to look at the city spread out beneath him, calculate the distance to his destination. The coat he took fits well enough, and the bulk of the holsters doesn’t show, so he zips the coat closed, checks the knives are secure- one strapped to his right wrist, one in each boot, last one resting by his hip- and sets off, anticipation sparking in his veins. He knows what his destination looks like from the inside, though he’s not sure he’d recognize it from the outside, but he can adapt. He can examine and collect Intel, lie low and gather what he needs while staying in the shadows. It is past midnight as he crosses a rooftop to look at a new street, and when he glances across at the building to check for lookouts, his breath catches, his entire body trembles at the sight, and he knows. There is something off about the place though, the presence of people still lingering.

He drops to the street, approaches the building, skirts it once before clambering up the first ledge and finding a window on the far side of the parapet. It is already broken, shattered glass lying on the ground inside. He has a feeling he knows what he will find inside, but doesn’t take unnecessary risks; listening before dropping himself down, rolling upon impact, brushing shards of glass off. He straightens and sees a corpse lying on the ground, dispatched with a clean shot to the head. The black stealth gear marks him out as _definitely_ not being a simple security guard, and if the empty holsters are anything to go by, the corpse has been well and truly looted. An alarm blares, warning lights flashing and the lights in the corridor flicker, damaged by gunfire and he makes his way down it, descending the stairs that lead to the vaults. There are more bodies here, too, blood painting the floor, all security gates wide open, pointing the one way he doesn’t want to, but has to go: the room at the end of the corridor. As he enters, nausea hits him like a wave at the sight of the chair brazenly positioned in the center, as if the centerpiece of an art installation. His attention shifts to the sight of a white lab coat stained red; the body of a doctor next to it, and his jaw clenches. He did not come here to look at someone else’s work, did not come here to count bodies: his displeasure shifts into anger- how dare someone else come along and do what he should do?! 

He shifts at the sound of booted feet approaching, thinks _well, looks like the cavalry decided to turn up after all,_ turning to face the entrance, bowing his head and hunching his shoulders down. The soldiers file into the room, fanning out to surround him, guns sighted at him. He doesn’t move, slows his breathing as a man enters, doesn’t do more than glance up at him quickly. The man takes in the sight of the room, frowns as if the sight of carnage everywhere upsets him no more than if it was raining on a summers day, then fixes his gaze upon him.

“Soldier” the man says, “you are ordered to stand down. Return with us for your debrief.“ He doesn’t react, and the mans frown deepens before he repeats the sentence in Russian, ending with a clipped “directors orders. If you don’t comply with orders, we’ll take you in by force. Stand down, now.” As he feigns raising his hands in supplication and walks towards the agent who had spoken, he feels the eyes of the others on him, sees them still with their guns sighted at him. In the heavy silence that lies upon the room, the only sound is that of his slow, measured footsteps and his regulated breathing. Coming to a halt in front of the man, he knows what will happen next; dully registers the hand reaching back, the sharp pain of the butt of the holster cracking against his cheek. He makes no sound, just rights his head and quashes the desire to reach out and...

  
"There now," the agent _croons_ with a hard smile, "that wasn't so hard, was it?" He signals to the others and, as one, ten guns lower slightly, the tension in the room easing just a bit.   
"Now," the man continues, "step closer." He lifts his gaze, looks the agent in the eye and with a flash of recognition that smarts more than the crack of the gun, remembers the man smiling as he is strapped into a chair, as the manacles snap into place, as his screams echo in the room.

  
He sees the corpses he has left behind in his nightmares, feels the memory of the kills in his muscles when he wakes, but he sees the face of the man before him, and _knows._ Knows that if he should fall asleep, neither the agent before him, nor those standing around him will appear to haunt him. He has a choice now, and the decision to act is his alone.   
He lunges forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a hard one to write, just cos i had the end of it already written out but couldnt figure out how to get there. also there was meant to be bucky killing someone with an espresso cup, but that'll have to wait for the next chapter (yay)
> 
> three guesses for who got to the bank/ hydra lab before bucky and raised hell in retribution for everything that was done to him? Hint, name starts with S and ends with Teve. (he has accelerated healing, and i never said this was accurate)
> 
> also my friend kate's actually being a total darling and making playlists over on 8tracks to go with each of the things i write (biggest compliment, my ego is being massively inflated by this). Check them out at: http://8tracks.com/kathystrange


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It feels like a borrowed face, a stolen face, taken from just another dead body, as he has taken countless other things from dead bodies. Weapons, files, information, clothes, keys, wallets and money; those are all things he has lifted from bodies. He does not remember taking a face from anyone. Yet he must have, somehow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mentions of violence, gunfights, blood, etc.
> 
> Penultimate chapter before I wrap this baby up!
> 
> The espresso cup was a special request from Kate (honestly, who requests murder by espresso cup ily) and was brought on by the Sebastian Stan quote of "I had to train in krav maga, this fighting style where you learn how to do things like kill an opponent with an espresso cup"

He stands in the room, alone again. The building’s bodycount has risen by 11, and he blinks off the fog of combat, sets about cleaning up. So he shucks his bloodied shirt off, barely hisses as he ties it tightly around the wound in his thigh. He looks for the body with the least damaged armour, strips it off, slips into first the shirt then the vest, replaces the holster, stocks it with new rounds and weapons, stands back up, grabs an agents phone just in case. The lab screens in the room do not give him any answers, so he makes his way down the corridor, takes care not to step in blood. Half an hour later, firecrews arrive at the scene to find an inferno raging in the building. The news reports will call it an explosion caused by a gas leak, but he knows better.

He takes care to bypass security cameras as he slips into an empty motel room, secures the door by shoving the table infront of it and doesn’t bother turning on the light as steps into the shower. There is nothing indulgent in the way he cleans himself, does not allow himself to stand and enjoy the feel of the warm water, just scrubs off, watching blood and dirt muddy the water. He takes more care of the wound in his leg, disinfecting it thoroughly before tearing the towel into strips and applying them as a bandage. The wound will heal fine and fast, he thinks, nothing more than a bullet graze. It’s nothing compared to the wounds he left on the men in the bank, nothing compared to the wounds he has left on others before.

There is a mirror above the sink, and as its fogged surface clears, he stops to look, to see if he can recognize himself. He looks at the reflection, seeing the face clearly even in the half gloom. Before, he’d catch glimpses of himself: in windows before they shattered, rain puddles as he tracked his target down alleys, in the blades of knives as he brought them down. Once, reflected in the wide eyes of a victim as she tried to scramble back to escape him and he followed her mercilessly. Now, he simply looks, tries to reconcile the face he sees with that of James Barnes.

The nose is the same, he supposes, as is the mouth, the curve of the lips, the shape of the face. It’s hard to tell, what with the beard growing in, and the hair that is longer than it was on the picture, but he thinks it must be the same face. It doesn’t feel like it’s the same face.

It feels like a borrowed face, a stolen face, taken from just another dead body, as he has taken countless other things from dead bodies. Weapons, files, information, clothes, keys, wallets and money; those are all things he has lifted from bodies. He does not remember taking a face from anyone. Yet he must have, somehow. He has James Barnes’ face, and what must be his body, too, but he is not James Barnes.

He is different to the man that people look up to; he is different to the man that fell to his death who was Steve Rogers’ best friend. He knows this because he sees the left hand gleaming next to the sink, sees nothing of the easy smile that James Barnes had, no spark of life or humour in his eyes. He doesn’t know when he smiled last, does not remember quirking the corner of his mouth up as he had seen it done in the video footage. Still there are lines around his mouth, thin laughter lines that are mirrored by his eyes. They look like scars, and he thinks of what blade he would use to leave scars such as these, lets the thought slip away, because these are marks that weren’t caused by pain. He entertains the thought, briefly, of smiling and seeing what happens, but on the face he wears now, it looks more like a grimace, a promise of death.

He lets the corners of his mouth fall again, sees nothing in the eyes staring back at him and thinks of how he’s simply borrowing someone else’s face. The arm is borrowed, too, an upgrade to James Barnes’ body to make it into even more of a weapon. He doesn’t know what belongs to him, simply a jumble of borrowed parts and thoughts, of flashes of recognition and hurt buried deep beneath nothing. He knows how to use the borrowed parts, though, so until he finds out what is his, _who_ he is, he’ll adapt, make do, keep moving.

His skin is raised in goosebumps and he takes one last look in the mirror, remembers the last time he saw the face before him in frost that crept up a glass window.

 

They next catch up to him two days later in a small diner outside of Chicago. He had left D.C behind as the city still recovered from fire and destruction, added five notches to his mental tally as he strode from a gutted warehouse, a bag filled with money, files and ammunition slung over a shoulder, and hitched a ride in the back of a truck, unseen. He leaves the boxes untouched, just settles in to sit by the back flap, lays out a map before him and starts plotting places he remembers. The files he had recovered from the safe house tell him no specific locations, only code words and hidden meanings, and he knows there are more bases in D.C he has left standing, but it is too much of a gamble to spend more time there, for now.

Perhaps the person (person _s?_ he wonders) that beat him to the bank days earlier will be able to rat out the remaining bases in Washington, give him time to get away. He has no intention of finding out who left all the agents dead and the doors open, not when he had to clean their mess up. He works fine alone, he thinks dully, but perhaps when he has exacted enough revenge on the organization that did nothing to stop him being held down, he will track down these people. He slips out of the first truck as the driver stops at a petrol station, purchases food and a bottle of water from a vending machine before taking a chance and approaching a different truckie. The man is headed to Ohio, and offers to take him that far, at least, for no charge, and without prying. The hours pass as the tarmac rushes by and he focuses on the landscape, the blue of the sky, the songs on the radio, anything to distract himself from the memories of burning hulls of cars and chaos on the streets. He is dropped off at a motel as night falls, checks into a room under a different name and waits for morning.

Three different rides and 23 hours later, he sits in a near empty diner and waits for his order to come through. He sits so he can watch all exits (front door, doors to the restrooms, back door, kitchen door, large glass front) and all patrons (old couple with grandchild, harmless) and forces himself to smile at the waitress as she brings him the first things he had seen on the menu: a tiny cup of what smells like coffee and large stack of waffles.

The espresso brings a hazy memory of sitting in a run down café in rural Italy, of passing a mug of watered down coffee around in a group of raucous men, the bitter grounds sticking to the rim of the ceramic. The memory catches him unawares, and he burns his tongue on the hot liquid, mind racing as he tries to put names to the men, the café, the village, the mission, the-- Steve, sitting amongst them, smiling with quiet amusement as Morita and Dum Dum tried to one-up each other on accounts of fights. It is a memory that must belong to James Barnes, but he did not see any evidence of this particular event in the museum exhibit, wonders how he knew this.

As the waitress comes to pass him the bill, the bell above the door tinkles and a couple walk in, followed by another man. He pays, then slips off to the restroom, where setting off the smoke alarm is a simple matter. He counts to thirty, leaving the civilians enough time to clear from the building, before smashing a window and shooting the tires of a black suv and small van that weren’t there before, silencer muffling the shots. A man approaches the civilians, seems to tell them to get to safety and leave as he flashes a badge. They comply, each getting into their vehicles and driving off. He waits till the cars are out of sight before he shoots the agent through the head, takes satisfaction in the way the man crumples to the ground instantly.

This leaves at least three others he needs to take care of, so he makes his way to the door and doesn’t hesitate before kicking it down, following it instantly, crushing an agent beneath it. He rolls as he lands, firing a shot through the door that leads into the diner and following it up by placing two bullets in the stomach of the next as he bursts through. The third agent takes cover by the counter, ducking up every so often to frantically empty his rounds in an attempt to even graze him. One shot, and the splinters of wood from the bar have the man stumble from his cover. Another, and his kneecap shatters, gun skittering across the floor as he falls. He approaches the man at a leisurely pace, sure in the knowledge that the agent is down and unarmed, stopping to pick his cup of coffee back up before turning towards the door and silencing the wounded agent’s gurgling noises with another shot.

“They’ll find you,” the only one left alive spits out, fingers scrambling to find a weapon. He brings one foot down on the nearest hand, hears the bones crack, watches the man writhe with pain. “We’ll find you,” he continues, though his voice has lost its bravado, “we’ll always find you, Hydra will come for you and you won’t be able to do anything, you are nothing, you are nothing without Hydra, you—“

The cup of coffee is empty, so he lets it drop, watches it land square on the mans chest, brings his other foot up, smiles that promise of death and brings it crashing down. In the resounding quiet after the snap of bone and sound of tissue ripping, it would be a cliché to say anything witty, so he just stows his gun and takes up his bag. He thinks it instead, a resounding “fuck you” to the four that had tried to cross him, to Hydra, to all the others that will fall before him. Thinking it feels good, so he says it out loud anyway, says it like a promise of destruction. He takes the plate of waffles with him. He payed for them, after all.


End file.
